Help, MAJOR problem with Canon HV20

Hello all

I recently purchased the canon HV20 and i was the happiest guy on earth BUT THEN

I attached my camera to the pc one day, and i was able to transfer footage, and now i shot alot of video on this camera, and now I attach the camera to the computer using the firewire cable, and nothing

nothing happens at all

i hear the warning sound that tells me that something is connected, but nothing pops up, nothing tells me that there is a camera. When i connect the same cable to my old panasonic camera, i get a pop up that gives me the option of choosing an editing program with which i can transfer the footage.

I am in alot of trouble right now cuz i bought this expensive camera and now i cant transfer the footage, and im going back home in a week. The camera worked a week ago, when i tried capturing some footage, but now nothing happens. I turned the camera off, and then on again, and then off, and then on again, nothing. I usually use sony vegas to capture the footage, but when i use the "capture footage" option i get a blue screen that says No Device Detected which just drives me crazy.

So please please please someone help me and tell me there is a way for me to get the camera to function again without actually sending it back. I dont care about the footage, i just care about the fact that i can actually transfer what i shoot to my pc.

Hi again
I don't have a HV20 but I have a friend who uses 2!!! Maybe he might help
you???
I'll ask him nicely to join this forum and hopefully he can assist.

Funny problem cos my Panasonic's also had the same problem in Vegas but I also had Pannys own software Motion DV studio which connected perfectly to the camera. Just make sure that you don't have another capture or edit utility installed on your computer that might be trying to "take over " the IE1394 Firewire Port!! Quite often an earlier package will refuse to "let go" of the port and you may have to install it!! As an example I had a Canon printer and when it "died" I didn't un-install the Canon utilities and no other printer would work on the machine as the port was still "reserved" by the old drivers.

Yours is more than likely a software/driver problem rather than the HV20!!

Help major probelm with HV20

I am not sure if i should admit it, but I am Chris's friend!

Hope i can help.

1. I really need to know what software you are using.
2. It is very important to set you capture settings to the same as you have video'ed in. I have started to write mine down for each project. ie 1800 50i whatever.
3. I presume you have set the camera to "play mode" (Please excuse me for asking that question... but.... it happens)
4. Consider using a capture only programme. ie HDV split (free)
5. Pinnacle 11, Vegas 7/8, Edius 4/4.5 all handle HDV very well. Adobe Premiere Pro 2 and Premiere CS3 have very real problems (I use them!!!!!)
6 CineForm is a great HDV codec aid but expensive (Being offered as at a discount on the HV20 forum at the moment). Try a 15 day trial of Aspect HD or one that is appropriate to your needs.
7.Try the Canon HV20 forum, those guys are very good indeed.http://www.hv20.com/index.php My apologies to this forum for that advice.

I suspect it is a software problem possibly settings/configuration problem, I doubt it is the camera. As always... I may be wrong. if so "blame Chris" for recommending me!

brido, i actually did not shoot on a high def tape, i shot using the high def option but on a regular miniDV tape, and so shouldnt that be regular SD footage and not HDV? and yes i put the camera on play mode, and i tried switching it on and off a few times to see if the pc picks it up, but nothing. now, i picked up my old panasonic camera and put in on play, and all i did was unplug the firewire cable from the canon, and plug it into the panasonic, and wouldnt u know it, i get the pop up in windows telling me to choose what software i want to capture the footage in, and this is the way i have been capturing footage for the past 2 years. then when i plug that same cable into my canon, i just hear the sound that there is somthing attached (the sound that u hear when u plug in a flash drive or something u know) but then nothing happens.

I use sony vegas 7, and im planning to upgrade to sonny vegas 8 when i get home. Still nothing is happening the way its supposed to. When i first got my hv20, i shot some footage on an old miniDV tape, and i plugged it into my pc, and the pc found the camera, however when it came time to capture, i used the regular DV option in sony vegas, and i could only capture the parts of the old tape, what i shot on an old camera, and not the 30 seconds that i shot on my new camera. so, i tried to choose the "HDV or SDI" option that sony vegas gives me, but then i just get a blue screen on the botton left of the screen saying "No devide detected" or somthing of that sort.

and also, brido, how do i set the capture settings to what i need them to be, i have fiddled around with sony vegas trying to do that but i could not find the proper place to do that.

So brido, can you please help me out with this issue? thank you very much

Major problem with Canon HV20

I am totally puzzled as you are using Vegas and SD material, it should be a piece of cake. I was/am having trouble with Premiere pro and moved over to Vegas to capture my HDV and I had no trouble at all. I cant remember about the settings i may have used in Vegas i am afraid. Whatever i did It just worked and as it is more than two years since i used Vegas regularly i cant remember the precise process. I just re installed it and did what i had to do to capture the material.

So to be practical. I can only think that your camera is not set to the settings that you filmed in. Check you settings in the HV20 in BOTH play mode and capture mode as the menu options differ slightly.

Being new to the camera I need to ask you if you are sure you captured in SD? (Its another of those questions I have to ask as "sh*t" happens to all of us).

Due to a terrible calamity (like dropping my dedicated video computer (tower PC) to the floor whilst it was running!! (idiot) I have lost everything on all of my three disks and will spend the rest of two or three days putting it all back on... I am really lucky that the disks are all alive but empty! For that reason i do not have Vegas currently installed in order for me to suggest a suitable capture workflow for you. Possibly Chris can help there, but if i remember rightly he has Vegas -version Dinosaur- unless i have managed to drag him into the 20th century. I should not be hard on him as i got a Christmas card from him today! (thanks Val!! )

I just want to re-enforce this HV20 settings thing; I went through a similar capture problem and it was not until I latched on to that issue that I solved it. I remember trying two or three settings until i got it right. Just capture a minute and see if that is working... don't capture the whole of the tape or you will be due for retirement before you get it on to your computer.

Hi Guys
First of all my Vegas version is 7D which is HD compatible and not yet outdated.
I think your first move would be to get HDV Split and use that for capture! As mentioned before I don't use my NLE to capture..just to edit !!

Make 100% sure that you ARE recording in HD mode and not SD mode on your camera. As Brido says make sure you know what mode the HV20 is in and then capture in the same mode. If you record in HD 1080 and then 't playback (for capture) in SD then your footage on your computer will be SD.
As Brido says also....just film a couple of minutes and capture 30 seconds of footage so you don't spend hours getting stuff that's wrong.